by Carlos Hurworth

Created on: September 03, 2009

As sympathies and condolences for the tragic death of Michael "the king of pop" Jackson flood cyberspace and indeed, any tangible (or intangible) space practically everywhere and anywhere on the earth, an inevitable wake of questions is being left trailing behind the metaphorical bandwagon that everyone has boarded since he passed away. But for all of the fame and glory, all the influence and funk, all the inspiration, all the record sales and sales records, there is a much darker side to this story - and it all revolves around greed.

Years in the limelight surely gave Jackson a taste for the extreme, lavish lifestyles of those in the celebrity world (the greed of his father and his hand in pushing Jackson towards celebrity is an entire other story) and Jackson's financial problems have been public knowledge for some time. His absurdly grandiose 'Neverland Ranch' which he called home - complete with fun parks and animal enclosures, amongst other ridiculously unnecessary installations - just one gross misuse of the billions his empire accumulated. Towards the end of his life, his Neverland Ranch would fall into foreclosure, and he would spend his time being accommodated by his other sickeningly wealthy chums in luxury hotels in Bahrain, Ireland and Germany, to name but a few of his ports of call. Then pushed to begin clearing his debts - his health already ailing, reports flying around that he was suffering from cancer, as the doubters began to speak up - he was persuaded to announce a 50 date series of shows.

In the aftermath, questions are being asked as to whether it was responsible for the tour promoters to make Jackson carry out the tour. Speaking out against the accusations against Jackson's preparedness, Randy Phillips, head of AEG, the company promoting the concerts was quoted as saying that Jackson was "as healthy as can be", even though days later he was forced to cancel the first four shows, AEG quoting "technical issues". Healthy or just healthy enough, the reported 85 million worth of tickets sold for the gigs was surely cause to convince Phillips and AEG that he was making the right choice for corporate greed. But there's more.

Reports from family friends in recent media confirmed that Jackson was using prescription drugs to help him deal with the stress of preparing for the shows. Others close to him compared his frail existence to the heavily-doped lifestyle of Anna-Nicole Smith, who died of a painkillers overdose in 2007. Brian Oxman, Jackson's

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